


orange skies

by complicationstoo



Series: nutmeg and cinnamon [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alpha Bucky Barnes, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Bucky Barnes Has Nightmares, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Developing Relationship, Getting Together, M/M, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Omega Tony Stark, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:35:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27569920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/complicationstoo/pseuds/complicationstoo
Summary: When Bucky walks out onto the roof, he intends to be alone. His mind is a bit of a mess, and he can’t remember the last time he managed to sleep without a nightmare.The sky shifts from golden yellow to orange and pink while he stands there, his head as empty as he can make it. He doesn’t have to turn around when the door opens. Between the cadence of the footsteps and the wind that blows the scent of nutmeg and oranges his way, he knows for a fact that it’s Tony.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark, past Pepper Potts/Tony Stark - Relationship
Series: nutmeg and cinnamon [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2015191
Comments: 15
Kudos: 266





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> well, when I wrote cinnamon dreams, I fully intended it to be a standalone, but then the idea of turning it into a series wouldn't leave my head, so here we are! it will be written out of order, so I'm sorry in advance about that, and I have no idea how long it might end up being.
> 
> let me know what you think :)

The first time Bucky and Tony interact it’s by accident. Sure, they’ve had their fair share of run-ins in hallways and the communal kitchen before then, but never more than paths crossing and then immediately diverging again. They meet eyes sometimes, share a glance, and then one or both of them walk away. Bucky wants to give him space, and Tony seems more than okay with taking it. Tony might have allowed him to move into the tower with the others once Steve located him, but that doesn’t mean he really wants the man whose hands were used to kill his parents there. 

From Steve, he knows that Tony is generous, sometimes to a fault, and forgiving, also to a fault. But Bucky isn’t sure he can accept forgiveness even if it’s offered, isn’t sure it’s something he deserves to have. His therapist would probably tell him that forgiveness is something that is given rather than earned, but Bucky has a hard time with that concept. So he keeps his distance, and Tony never tries to breach the space. 

When Bucky walks out onto the roof on a cool spring evening just as the sun is starting to set, he intends to be alone. His mind is a bit of a mess, and he can’t remember the last time he managed to sleep without a nightmare. Maybe two weeks ago, when he nearly passed out from exhaustion and fell into a ten hour dreamless sleep after about a week of going without it. The nights since have been interspersed with fragments of memories emerging as he sleeps that leave him feeling haunted when he wakes. 

He drags his bare feet across the stone-tiled floor, over to the ledge that looks out over Manhattan and leans his elbows on it. 

He never liked heights before Hydra. According to Steve, he used to avoid them at all costs, but something must have happened to change that, because now he finds comfort in the wide expanse of city below him. 

The sky shifts from golden yellow to orange and pink while he stands there, his head as empty as he can make it. Quiet means something different to him now, too. He never liked it before, absolutely couldn’t stand it during when it meant the possibility of an unknown danger lurking about. The threat you can’t see is always worse than the one you can. But now he seeks out the peace of it. Quiet means that he can rest. 

It also makes the sound of the roof door opening seem that much louder. 

Bucky doesn’t turn around, doesn’t have to. Between the cadence of the footsteps and the wind that blows the scent of nutmeg and oranges his way, he knows for a fact that it’s Tony. 

Tony doesn’t seem to notice him at first, and when he does, the footsteps abruptly stop. “Oh, I, uh, didn’t know anyone else was out here. Sorry, I’ll - I can go back in.”

“It’s your tower,” Bucky says, voice like gravel from lack of use. He clears his throat and continues, “Gives you more right to be out here than me.”

“ _ Was _ my tower. Now it’s sort of everybody’s, and I just foot the bill,” Tony replies, a touch of humor to it. “Like a sugar daddy with literally none of the benefits.”

Bucky wasn’t expecting jokes, and he doesn’t quite know how to respond to them anymore. He thinks there was a time when he was funny himself, when he could make someone laugh as easily as Tony can. His jokes tend to be on the darker side now and have the side effect of making Steve upset. He always tries to hide it, but even seventy years of conditioning can’t wipe away what Steve Rogers looks like when he’s sad. 

Tony takes another few steps forward, until there’s only a couple feet separating them. His scent intensifies, and that’s yet another thing Bucky doesn’t know how to deal with anymore. He likes the scent of the omega but isn’t sure he’s allowed to. 

“Honestly, though, if you want to be alone I’m sure I can find somewhere else to scream into the void for a while.”

“Scream into the void?” Bucky repeats, looking over his shoulder at the other man. Tony looks tired, the bags under his eyes deep and dark. His smile is soft, but the kind of soft that comes when anything more would be too much effort. The shirt he’s wearing is the same one that Bucky saw him in two days, now marked with grease and something Bucky hopes is food instead of blood. 

“Not literally, of course,” Tony says, and he walks forward to stand next to Bucky. It’s the closest they’ve ever been, and closer than most people are willing to get to him. Even the other Avengers have a tendency to leave some space, with the exception of Steve. “Not that anyone would care if I did. It’s New York, so I bet most people have already heard and ignored the sound of someone screaming today.”

Bucky is keenly aware that he’s wading into uncharted territory by engaging in conversation with Tony, but he doesn’t like the thought of walking away from it. Doesn’t like the thought of Tony on the roof at dusk, screaming into the void by himself, even if it is just an expression. 

“Any particular reason for the void screaming?”

Tony sighs, running an oil-smudged hand through his hair. “Oh, you know, just having one of the longest weeks of my life. Although I guess complaining to someone who had 3,640 really long weeks in a row probably doesn’t get me any sympathy.”

At the look on Bucky’s face, Tony explains, “That’s seventy years worth of weeks. But that’s a bad joke, so I’m sorry about that.”

Tony is just as surprised as Bucky himself when he starts to laugh. “Don’t be sorry. It’s better than walking on eggshells afraid to mention it.”

“Steve?”

Bucky nods, “But not talking about it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, and only talking about it when I’m down isn’t helping much either. Just reinforces the feeling that I should be ashamed of it. That I should keep it buried.”

“Oh, wow, someone’s therapy is paying off.”

Bucky laughs again, “It’s helping more than I thought it would. Even if my therapist doesn’t have a whole lot of experience dealing with formerly brainwashed assassins from the forties.”

“Well, it is a small group in her defense.”

“In Steve’s I don’t think he’s trying to ignore it. He just doesn’t know how to talk about it, and I don’t either half the time.”

“No one knows how to talk about trauma.”

“And you should know?” Bucky jokes.

Tony grins, “I should. I’m a leading expert in the field of not talking about it.”

Bucky hums, and for a while he goes back to looking out at the city. Tony fidgets next to him, always moving one body part or another like he never learned how to sit still. Waves of orange-scented air keep hitting him, and Bucky ends up leaning in closer to the scent. 

It matches his own base scent, though his is mixed with cinnamon. Not far off from Tony’s nutmeg, and Bucky wonders what it means that together they smell like a holiday. Like Christmas with his family when he was a kid and his mom stirring mulled wine on the stove. Safe and warm and nostalgic. 

He never noticed it before, but he can’t stop noticing it now. 

“How’s the void screaming going?” Bucky asks, hoping the return to conversation will take his mind off the fact that his alpha instincts, which he thought went dormant long ago, are making him feel like he should be burying his face in Tony’s neck. 

“Hard to do with someone next to you.”

“Do you want me to go?” He can’t decide if he wants the answer to be yes or no, and Tony shakes his head before he can. 

“No, it’s - it’s actually kind of nice.” 

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Tony laughs, “Didn’t we just say that I’m the expert in not talking about it?”

Bucky shrugs, keeping his gaze directed out on the horizon. It’s always easier to talk when no one’s looking. “Doesn’t mean you don’t want to.”

Tony falls silent for so long that Bucky thinks he’s ignoring the invitation to talk, politely telling him no without actually saying a word. But then he finally says, “Pepper and I broke up.” 

He starts off speaking quietly, but his voice gradually grows louder in frustration. “It’s one of those things that was a long time coming, but I don’t know if that makes it any easier. Knowing it’s coming doesn’t mean you can stop it. It just means you get to watch things fall apart in slow motion and know the whole time that the end is inevitable.

“I knew she wasn’t happy. She hasn’t been for quite a while now, and I knew I wasn’t exactly happy anymore, either. I don’t feel anything when I look at her anymore. Don’t miss her when she’s gone like I used to. So at the same time it isn’t really my girlfriend that I lost. I lost that a long time ago, with all the times that I wasn’t willing to give anything up to make us work and she couldn’t understand why giving up Iron Man was never an option for me. 

“It’s more of the idea of us that’s dead now. The idea that I could have something real with someone. We held on for so long because - because it felt like if we couldn’t make it work with each other then we can’t make it work with anyone else. Because if she can’t handle dealing with me anymore, no one else is ever going to be willing to. And it just - it all just sucks right now.”

Tony ends with a heavy sigh and puts his head down on his arms. Bucky thinks this might be the point where a friend would offer a consoling touch, a hand on his back or an arm around his shoulders, but he gets the feeling it wouldn’t be welcomed from him. 

“So does this make me the void?” The joke slips out before he can think about it. Maybe this is the reason his jokes make Steve upset - they’ve got terrible timing. 

Tony looks up, confusion on his face. “What?”

“You said you were screaming into the void, but instead you were kind of screaming at me. Not really screaming, but you get the point, so,” Bucky lamely explains. 

Tony laughs, and his scent loses some of the sourness that overtook it when he got upset. “Yeah, I guess it does. But the void doesn’t usually talk back.”

“Oh, sorry. I’ll be a better void next time.”

“You talk more than I thought you would, just in general,” Tony comments, a strange look on his face. “I mean, you walk around all silent and brooding like you don’t know how to do it anymore. But I guess it’s just me you weren’t talking to, then.”

And that explains the look. 

“I’ve been trying to give you space.”

Tony raises an eyebrow. “Space? I don’t recall asking for that.”

“No, but…” Bucky trails off, not knowing quite how to explain himself. How it’s hard to look at Tony and feel anything but guilt. How he thinks Tony should hate him for all that’s happened. “I thought you would appreciate it. After everything.”

“Do me a favor in the future?” Tony asks, and Bucky nods. “Don’t give me space unless I’ve asked for it. I don’t like feeling like I’m being avoided.”

Bucky has the feeling that Tony is being more honest with him now than he usually ever is. There’s a vulnerability in his face and tone, a touch of fear like he’s worried what Bucky’s answer will be, so he keeps his response simple. 

“Okay.”

And Tony’s smile is enough to make him forget about all the reasons he was alone on the roof in the first place. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this story decided this morning that it wasn't finished yet and needed another chapter. who am I to deny its wishes?

After that first night on the roof, Tony sees Bucky everywhere. In the kitchen when he comes up from the lab for air or in the middle of the night when he’s stealing bags of Bruce’s herbal tea because he can’t sleep. He’s in the gym more than Tony ever saw him before, in the living room playing video games with Clint, even in the lab after he comes down one day to get something fixed on his arm and notices that Tony forgets to eat lunch when he’s working. 

Sandwiches start appearing at around noon, and Tony doesn’t notice that they’re there until Bucky is already gone, leaving behind just a faint whiff of cinnamon in his wake. A week after that he stops just leaving the food for Tony to find and instead begins to eat with him. 

They spend those afternoons talking about anything that comes to mind. Bucky tells him about the movies he’s been watching, the shows Natasha has him bingeing with her, and the books that Steve has been recommending. Tony tells him about his projects, both for the Avengers and for SI, and gives him lists of things to watch and read that the others haven’t already mentioned. He changes the lists when Bucky tells him what he liked on them and what he didn’t. 

It takes Tony a surprisingly long time for him to realize what’s happening. 

The pieces start to click on one of those quiet days in the workshop, when he realizes that he’s spent more time with Bucky in the last month than he has with anyone else on the team, and he thinks Bucky could say the same about him. But takes another couple of weeks after that realization for anything to actually come of it. 

“Why do you spend so much time down here?” he asks, his gaze directed at the boot of the Iron Man armor in front of him. The repulsor went down during the last mission after taking a direct hit, and the goal is to make it so it will never happen that way again. 

Bucky is over on the couch that’s against the wall, spread across the cushions like he owns it and a book propped open on his stomach. There’s a pillow beneath his head, and Tony has no clue where it even came from. 

“Are you asking me to leave?” 

“No,” Tony says quickly, looking over at Bucky to find him staring back with his eyebrows raised. He doesn’t look offended by the question, but maybe a little amused. “I just - there’s gotta be something else you’d rather be doing. Or at least a more comfortable place to read that book. There’s, uh, there’s a whole library for that, you know. You’ve seen it, right?”

“I have,” Bucky replies, folding down one corner of his book page and closing it. He tosses it on the floor next to the couch and straightens up a little. “I’ve probably spent more time in it than you have, and I’ve only lived here for eight months.”

“That’s probably true,” Tony admits. He turns back to his work, reconnecting one of the wires he disconnected earlier. 

“Probably?”

“Alright, definitely.”

“Do you even know what floor it’s on?”

Tony bites his lip, “Eighty one?”

“That’s the pool.”

“Is it? Huh,” Tony frowns. Then he shrugs and waves his hand through the air, “Doesn’t matter. I don’t need to know where it is when Jarvis does.”

“This is what happens when you depend too much on technology,” Bucky teases. “Don’t even know the floors of your own tower.”

Tony laughs, “Are you hearing this, J? No more doing things for Barnes until he learns to respect your power. He’ll have to learn how to use Google and work the coffee maker himself like the common folk.”

“Duly noted, Sir,” Jarvis says, but Tony can hear the sarcasm in his tone. 

Bucky is used to Jarvis enough these days that he can hear it, too, and he laughs, “All I’m saying is I know exactly where the library is, but I’d rather be down here instead.”

“And all I’m asking is why. It’s loud sometimes, and I talk to myself a lot, and I’m pretty sure that couch is the oldest piece of furniture in this entire building. There’s at least a hundred better places to be.”

“Yeah, sure, but you’re not in any of those places.”

Tony is glad that his back is turned away from Bucky, because he isn’t sure what the look on his face is. Surprise, probably. Disbelief for sure. 

He doesn’t have a response to that, and that isn’t something he’s used to. He always has a response, even to the cruelest of comments or wittiest of remarks. 

“Is that too much to say?” Bucky asks, voice hesitant. “Thought it might be crossing the line, but you never really seem to have one.”

Tony swallows around the lump in his throat. “No, um, that’s not too much to say. Just - just not what I was expecting.”

“What were you expecting?”

Tony shrugs, “I don’t know. Avoiding one of the others, maybe. Steve hid out here for five weeks one time because Natasha and Clint kept trying to set him up with people. He’s the one that brought the couch, actually, and I have no idea where he got it from, but my guess is a thrift store because I think it came with that stain.”

Bucky frowns down at the dark stain by his arm, then moves to the other side of the couch to be nowhere near it. “I thought that was coffee.”

“Still could be, I guess. Just not from anyone you know.”

“That’s a horrifying thought,” Bucky says, face crinkled in disgust, and he shakes his head as if to clear the thought away. “But anyway, no, not avoiding anyone. Is it that hard to believe that I just like your company?”

“Everyone likes my company, Robocop,” Tony grins. “I’m a joy to be around.”

Bucky doesn’t call him out on how fake the smile is or how much of an obvious deflection it was, but it’s clear on his face that he isn’t buying it. 

“You ever notice that we have the same base scent?” Bucky asks, switching the topic fast enough to give Tony whiplash.

Tony nods, “Oranges.”

“I never noticed until a couple months ago. That night on the roof? It was the first time I got close enough to you to smell it.”

Tony gets the feeling that the conversation is going somewhere serious, and though he doesn’t know why, he puts his tools down and turns around. Leaning back against the table, he folds his arms over his chest and waits for Bucky to make whatever point he’s going for. 

“Reminded me of Christmas when I was a kid. You and me together like that. Made me feel… safe, I guess. Which is weird, because scents don’t really do that for me anymore,” Bucky says, staring at a point on the ground somewhere near Tony’s feet. It seems hard for him to say this for some reason. “Steve, his scent used to be sort of like that. Peppermint and chocolate always made me feel better, and I’m not saying it’s not good now, but it’s not like it used to be. He just - it’s just Steve’s scent now, and I don’t feel any sort of way about it. But being around you…”

He trails off, but Tony knows what he means, anyway. “I get it. My scent is comforting, and you want to be around it. You don’t have to explain it.”

Bucky bites his lip, shaking his head, “It’s not just that. I don’t think just anyone smelling like that would do anything. It’s also the way you don’t hold anything back around me, not even on that first night, so I don’t feel like I have to hold anything back from you, either. I could probably tell you all about the fucked up dream I had last night and you wouldn’t even flinch.”

“Well, what was it?” Tony asks. 

“Steve had a scoop of vanilla ice cream for a head and chocolate chip cookies for eyes. No one else seemed freaked out about it but me.”

Tony grins, “Vanilla seems appropriate.”

“That’s rude,” Bucky laughs. “I’m telling him you said that.”

“You’re the one whose subconscious decided that Steve was the worst flavor of ice cream.”

“The worst? How can you say that knowing full well that pistachio is right there?”

Tony scoffs, “At least pistachio has a flavor. Vanilla might as well taste like nothing. There’s a reason everyone uses it to describe people who only do boring sex things.”

“What? Who does that?”

“Everyone does that. Oh, no, was that not a thing back in the day? How many of my jokes have you and Steve not been understanding this whole time?”

“Honestly? A lot of them. When I first got here, Steve told me to laugh when Nat does, because that means it was actually funny. But if Clint is the only one laughing, then it’s a bad one and we should ignore it. If Clint isn’t laughing at all, it’s so bad that we should glare at you instead.” 

Tony gapes and puts his hand on his chest, “Oh my God. Betrayed in my own home.”

Bucky shrugs, unfazed, “It’s mostly Steve that doesn’t get them now if it helps. I only had to use the system for a while before I started watching the movies on your list. You make a lot of pop culture references.”

“So the other hundred year old man has told me.”

Bucky smiles, then asks, “So how do you feel about an ice cream taste test?”

“Would this be a whole team thing or just us?”

“Clint eats anything and would invalidate the results, Bruce isn’t eating dairy anymore, Thor is on Asgard, Natasha doesn’t like ice cream, and I can’t think of a reason not to invite Steve besides the fact that if we don’t it’s kind of like a date.”

If Tony wasn’t leaning against the table, he would have fallen on his ass from the way he jolts in surprise. “Kind of?”

Bucky tries to stay casual, but the slight blush on his cheeks gives him away. “I mean, it could be, if that’s something that you were interested in.”

“Is - is it something you’re interested in?

“Well, I wouldn’t have mentioned it if it wasn’t,” Bucky says, a soft smile on his face. “But it’s okay if it’s not something you want. I know the break up with Pepper wasn’t that long ago, and you might not even be thinking about starting something new yet. Or maybe it’s just me you don’t want something with, and that’s okay, too. We’re still friends, even if you say no.”

Tony takes only a few seconds to think about it, and the decision is easy to make. A lot of things with Bucky are easier. 

“And if I say yes?”

Bucky’s smile grows, and he stands from the couch to walk over to Tony. “Then I would say that there’s a place in Brooklyn that still makes the best ice cream I’ve ever had.”

Tony holds his hand out, and Bucky takes it without hesitation, cool metal wrapping around him. “Lead the way.”

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr [@ifmywishescametrue](https://ifmywishescametrue.tumblr.com) :)


End file.
